Barometer | 1 December 2016

Also in our Barometer column: rail fares and whole-life tariffs

Autumn Budgets

Philip Hammond announced that in future the Budget will be held in autumn rather than spring. This is not as revolutionary as some have made out.

— In his 1992 Budget Norman Lamont announced that there would be two budgets in 1993, one in spring and one in autumn, and that from then on the date would switch to autumn for good.

— The Budget was delivered every November from then until 1996. In 1997, Gordon Brown held his first Budget in July, before reverting to a spring date.

— Denis Healey also delivered a November Budget in 1974, soon after the second general election of that year.

Tickets please

The Department for Transport says it will force train companies to make passengers aware if there is a cheaper ticket available for their journeys. How much could you pay to travel from London to Manchester on the morning of Monday 9 January?

Life with the judges

Thomas Mair, who murdered Jo Cox, and Stephen Port, who murdered four men, were both given whole-life tariffs. How many whole-life orders have been made by judges since the European Court of Human Rights ruled that elected politicians could not make the orders?